3 Unexpected Benefits of the Fisher MBA

There are benefits to “getting an MBA” which are common knowledge, and it’s likely that you are familiar with most of them. These benefits are a little different for everyone, but usually they include being able to switch careers, build a network base, find a good internship/job, and/or build a broad knowledge base in how to run a business.

Fisher provides every single one of those benefits to any student who is willing to work hard and take advantage of the opportunities that are here. However, after one semester, there have been three unexpected benefits of the Fisher MBA program that have helped me a great deal, both in and outside of school. These three advantages to getting a Fisher MBA are much more difficult to tangibly identify, but they are nevertheless very real:

You learn how to better manage your time. Pre-MBA, I honestly thought I was pretty good at time management, but in reality, I had a lot to learn. When you add together the standard MBA work (classes, homework, group projects, exams), an internship where I work part-time during the week, networking interviews/events, study time for professional tests outside of school, and time with my wife, life gets full fast. Perhaps the most valuable skill I have been learning here at Fisher is time management and how to “keep the main thing the main thing.”

You get a lot of practice making decisions. Before Fisher, I had never done a case study before, but that is no longer the case, let me tell you. Whenever I study a case now, I purposefully try to think through what exactly I would do in the situation present in the case and why I would do that, even if the case doesn’t necessarily ask. One of the best parts about cases is that they give you regular practice at making difficult decisions, and I have truly felt my ability to make decisions improve. This has bled over directly into my life outside of school and it’s really nice!

You are better able to converse with a wide variety of people. Over the past few months I have had the privilege to meet and talk to a lot of quite different people. Because of the Fisher MBA classes, class readings, guest speakers, diverse classmates, etc., my knowledge base has broadened, which has really helped me have much deeper conversations with people than I would have had without the Fisher MBA experience. I definitely saw this over Christmas break.

I am by no means at the level where I should be in any of these areas, but after one semester of the Fisher MBA I can definitely see improvement in more than just academics. The Fisher MBA program is teaching me life skills that I will utilize for the rest of my life.